Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) – A School Nurse Guide

My head’s spinning!! ...And, with a new group of children comes a new group of conditions. Like my students with Cerebral Creatine Deficiency Syndromes (CCDS), Phenylketonuria (PKU), and Posterior Urethral Valves (PUV), a child with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) has landed under my care (poor child). Just the name itself gives us a ton of information: Congenital (existing at or dating from

Vision Screening – The School Nurse Guide

The school year is progressing along lickety split! We've been back to school for 94 days and have 197 left until summer break... including weekends and holidays...not that I'm counting or anything like that. Allergies...CHECK! Immunizations…CHECK! Vision screening... CHECK! What's next? Follow-ups for sure (with puberty class lingering). You can tell I am a school nurse for elementary school students.

School Nurse’s Guide to the Dehydrated Child

When I was a kid in school, the blissful hour was the last hour of school. It was that hour when we knew “freedom” was being counted in minutes rather than hours. Then there was Ms. Foster. Yes...Ms. Foster....who, during the last 60 seconds of the last period would mozey over to the door to “dismiss” us after the completion

11 Qualities of an Awesome School Nurse

Qualities Awesome School Nurse

11 Qualities of an Awesome School Nurse - Nurses are great folks. And I ain't just saying that because I'm a nurse; I have worked with hundreds of nurses in four different states and in five different “genres” of nursing. We nurses are pretty awesome folks. Sure we are! We can have our fingers tangled up to the third knuckle

How to Recognize the Fakers

“Nurse Kevin, I am so sick...I think I am having ‘ana-pol-axis.’ I am very allergic to killer bees...and marinara sauce. Can I have a mint?” Little Jenny has some very concerning “ailments.” She has managed to articulate her reason for coming to see the nurse, clearly...and without pausing...and while suffering from a very subjective case of anaphylaxis, hypoglycemia, and, more importantly,

School Teachers vs. School Nurses – 3 Reasons to Listen

School Nurse

Two teachers came to visit me today. They were polite as they approached me with a few questions. At first I didn’t know what to think; I didn’t feel like they were teaming up on me, the school nurse. But I did feel they were attempting to “tread on thin ice.” Funny thing is: My ice is pretty thick. “We wanted

Concussion Symptoms Assessment for the School Nurse

concussion symptoms

“Whoa, man! What happened to you? Did you get in a fight with a ninja?” A little kindergartner enters the health office with a huge goose egg on his right forehead. “I bet you licked him, didn’t you?” Of course, without a frame of reference, the kinder looks at me sideways, kinda like a puppy who just heard a funny,